History

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The term Governmental Learning is introduced in the literature by Etheredge in 1981 and further discussed by Bennett and Howlett in 1992. Their understanding of the term explains the integration of social, instrumental and political learning into one concept. The herewith presented approach goes beyond this understanding and emphasizes a more open or input/output-related (multidimensional) dynamic in a political learning system (see Amita Singh 2011).

The first practical application of the concept of Governmental Learning dates from an action learning project conducted at the Department of Social Services of the City of Zurich, lead by a research team of the Pedagogical Institute of the University of Zurich from 1990-92.

Based on these experiences it became evident that learning in the political context goes further than the existing learning concepts of individual, organizational, policy and experimental learning, as summarized in the project report (see Fatke, Blindenbacher and Hierlemann 1992).

An extensive theoretical analysis of this action learning project was elaborated in the dissertation “Organisationsstrukturen Sozialer Einrichtungen” in 1996 (see Blindenbacher 1997) where Governmental Learning was operationalized into the methodology of the Governmental Learning Spiral.

The Governmental Learning Spiral was first applied in a learning event held in Berne/Switzerland under the auspice of the Federal Office of Personnel in the Swiss Federal Ministry of Finance in 1999. The definition of the term and its application is described in the conference publication in 2000 (see Blindenbacher, Huber and Iff).

The method of the Governmental Learning Spiral was for the first time applied on an international level at the Second International Conference of Federalism 2002 and was theoretically reflected in the publication “Federalism in a Changing World” in 2003 (see Blindenbacher and Watts).

Since then the method of the Governmental Learning Spiral has become a key tool to organize learning events and processes in political settings, firstly in the Forum of Federations and later on in the World Banks Independent Evaluation Group and the World Bank Institute as well as currently at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development OECD.

The primary publication fully dedicated to the methodology of the Governmental Learning Spiral and early attempts to conceptualize a theory of Governmental Learning is published by the World Bank in the book The Black Box of Governmental Learning in 2010 (see Blindenbacher and Nashat).

To professionalize the application as well as the further development and dissemination of the Governmental Learning Spiral, the Governmental Learning Lab, a subsidiary of the Blindenbacher Borer Consulting Ltd., was founded in 2003 and transformed into its current legal structure in 2013.